Amy Brown

Amy Brown is a New Zealand poet, novelist and teacher who has lived in Melbourne for seven years. In 2012 she completed a PhD on contemporary epic poetry at the University of Melbourne. Her first collection of poetry, The Propaganda Poster Girl, was shortlisted at the 2009 New Zealand Book Awards. Her latest book, a contemporary epic poem titled The Odour of Sanctity was published in 2013. She is also the author of Pony Tales, a series of four children's novels published by HarperCollins.

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Snake' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

We are following a track that loopsaround a lake impaled with trees,a pinned-down habitat for platypuses I would like to see, so try to walksilently until a shadow across the sun-dried turf in front of me blushes curls and slides down a bank.I stop, tell you what I've seen, smileat the luck. You jump onto a log. For the rest of the walk, we stompand you look for a eucalypt branchyou can thump l ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Map' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

When it was nearly still acceptableto nip the shoulder of the pleasant boysitting cross-legged in front of you(leaning back and pulling the royal blue wool of his jersey with loose teeth)I had an elastic idea, which stretchedthrough the next twenty-five years. Seniorprimary school's kingdom of fully grown flax bushes and adult-sized toilets,places to hide without being sought,would shrink each d ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Luck' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

The board game Holiday was setin our loud neighbour's. On the box,a ruddy family: flushed child's cheeks,father's gin-blossom nose. Lame punsconfused me ('Koalas Cross Here –Koalas Furious Here'); typecastsspanned Wake in Fright and The Castle. Passports are required to enter the luckyred land I knew from wet afternoons.Cold-sore photo was forgotten when I meta real Australian daughter ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Experiment' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

Preserving jars filled to the brimrefract the living room window's light in fuchsia and absinthe bowsacross the late afternoon wall. Skewered with toothpicksand balanced in their simple womb of tap-water and suntwo avocado stones compete. Whiteboard pen marks my nameon one jar, yours on the other. We are willing to wait monthsfor roots, hoping to see a shoot push through the blackene ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Fear' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

The university plovers are fat and silent,'toe-walking' across lightly frosted lawnso as not to wake whatever invertebrateis breakfast. At home they are scrawny,caught up in shrieking war with pukeko. Until I moved to Melbourne I maintainedmy ornithophobia, which became impracticalin a place with murders of crows on mostcorners. So, I decided to love their oil-spill plumage and dinosaur gait, the ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Cranes' by Amy Brown

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

The Docklands cranes that hoist containersfrom ship to shore and back againare giraffes according to my friend's four-year-old.Residents of the urban zoo sleep on their hooves,work all day and eat stars instead of leaves;now there aren't many left in the city.Perhaps they live on bats, as the bats eat flies –double swarms obscuring church spires.The four-year-old wears a Batman costumepadded w ... (read more)